Ty Korrigan

You got it! I've always got pockets and teeefff, red and green. You know, I can get the grinder in the back of a Renault Kangoo with the folding passenger seat! We are just in the process of registering our recent purchase of an Iveco tipper and the grinder goes up the ramps easy as pie. The wee Bandit is 'Hors service' for a week as of tonight as I'm just replacing the bearings before they go, one has always run dry since new, just can't get any grease in it. Ty

I have no idea where Nick Watkins is coming from or even going too... Some people just hate it when others do well and I think we have one here boys! The number of French or expats who would read posts on this forum number few to none and those in my working range even fewer. As for offering clients a win win situation... I offer a price, client takes it, I do a good job, client is satisfied, I get paid therefore, I win they win! IF they didn't like my prices they'd vote with their wallets. I just wanted to share the success of this little grinder with others having also had similar success with a wee chipper. If that gets up Nicks nose then 'Chouette' as the French say. Ty

Here is how... I've just been through the job sheets for looking for the grinding work we've done and a quick count up shows we are grossing just about 120euros+(£95) per hour for a wee Bandit HB20 pedestrian grinder. Another count up tells me that most jobs come as a result of our own work with only maybe 15-20% from other sources such as sub contracting or one off calls. Most profitable day was last week with 400euros in 2 hours! Today, a mere 480euros in 4 hours. Now I'd love to buy a better machine, one more stable and powerfull but the grinder goes out only once or twice a week on average. However, as I can now confirm, when it does go out, it really earns for us! Best clients are small gardens with a badly placed stump and post coni hedge removals. So I say all you wee tree firms. A wee grinder is a real earner and also gives you a break from dragging brash or climbing. Future planning... Next task is to measure the number of 'technical' climbing jobs from those less demanding to give a forecast for the future as I'm 43 in Jan and will slowly become more groundsman orientated. Plan is to take on a third man, an apprentice at college to share the climbing keeping us all fresh by rotating regularly and also fresh with ideas and current industry...er...stuff. Nighty night now x Ty

Same here, Atlas trailer full to the oxters, brimming over and rather full also weighs 2.7ton. The Iveco tipper, without any greedy boards just its low sides almost overflowing comes in at a ton. We weighed in at our mates quarry. Regards Ty

More seriously, a bit like France, trees are 2 a penny. With so many of them around no-one really values them. I often see ancient hedgerow oaks felled to make way for a new build or because the acorns need sweeping up once a year... My perception from 6 months spent traveling and working is that N.Z creates a myth that it is a caring ecological place. Its already felled most viable native forests and replanted with radiata. The people drive cars with big engines, D.O.C drop poison pellets by aircraft over entire valleys to kill invasive species (also kills and poisons everything else) Intensive dairy production causing high nitrates from fertiliser and slurry and all those bloody tourists flying in and driving around too boot! Ty

Does this species scream and bleed when felled? Is that why we use ear defenders then...? Ty

Chap, thats sadly true or we'd have probally done business. Can't really fault the Bandits except on weight, mind you, if I had to take a chipper to war it would be a Bandit, better armour than a Panzer! However, I don't regret blowing out all the others we'd looked at and tested for our Quadchip now we've bought one. The last things on my mind now are other chippers. After all, once your wedded your eyes don't wander now do they... Well... not until they reach a certain number of hours... (Woman OR machine...hhhh!) Ty

You can get a cream for 'Wartburgh' or take preventitive measures like washing... Ty

Imagine this guys car brakes or even his kitchen worktop! If you can be so blind not to see this then elsewhere in life, blindness follows. If you have a wife you love and children to come home too then that is surely motivation enough to look hard at your kit and change pieces regularly. Ty

They are standard issue here for French climbers and practicioners of the cut and hold technique. Also, no good against thorns and rather hot too. Ty

Try writing to Sussex Life or Horse and Hound:sneaky2: Really, the 'Aga set' on a working mans forum...hhhhh:001_tt2:! Ty

Amazing the numbers of people who would rather have all their trees cut down so as to avoid sights like these... Ty

What? The business plan or the arm mincer? Ty Buy a CS100, keep it clean, serviced and it will pay you back in no time at all and then when you've out grown it you'll probally keep it as a pet. The image attached is of a decent sized cedar which went through our CS100 just before we bought our Quadchip using the funds the CS100 earned us. Don't be a mug, if your chinese potato processor goes kipper bang twang just who are you going to call...? Later...

Hello, That looks a good set up:thumbup1: Questions for you... What payload in the box? What metre cube the box? Regards Ty

Hello, Just returned from a visit to Morocco where a friend invited my wife and I to stay with his family at the game park they manage for an Arab Sheik. It is an enormous spread of cork oak forest where rare breeds of North African deer, gazelles and others are raised but not hunted. The actual 'game' are wild boar from Turkish stock raised by the thousand for stalking. Also many birds, pheasants, partridges, wild turkeys and many thousands of ducks, so many that the sky darkens with their numbers. My interest was in...everything but especially the cork forest ecology and management. Not saying I'm hoping to land a job there but there is a serious lack of re-generative growth due to the large numbers of animals and a poor re-plantation scheme of oak. I see work there... Anyway, enjoy these images. I found the stump removal alot of fun! Stacks of cork oak bark outside the park and wild melons (inedible for humans) Ty

Hello, I bought a Tiny Tach which I bought from an aviation company for about 12 pounds, just google it. You can also buy a Briggs and Stratton tacho from Briggs Bits. Easy to install with leads off the plugs. Cheers Ty

We never turn down hedges as they often bring trees with them and work is work after all. We've got a Henchman platform and may buy another even though they really are poorly made for the money, still a very usefull and above all safe tool for working off. Our prices for hedges are always by quote, never by the hour and are as much as we think we can get. This week we had a horrible laurel to fell to chest height from 4m. Full of brambles, barbed wire and starling mess. Chipped and tipped on site, looks like a real mess of naked stems but come May-June next year it will be all green again. There is a move away from conifer hedges here on the housing estates and so we get a fair few hedge removals complete with stumps which again is a good earner. Cripes, if I was just a 'climber', I'd probally work once a week! So much 'terrestial' work around! Ty

Ah, We had been lowering big lumps but at this point the trunk is in 2 sections, split over 3m and so we thought it faster to chog down poker chips. Visor up for the photos! Ty

Images don't show the rain unfortunately... However, this job was a real leaner of an oak (phototropic? or will that cause and arguement?) It was a mighty challenge for us, leaning as it was over a shabby former chicken shed. Heavy crown, full leaf, stem split over 3m, could see daylight and almost pass a hand through. The chosen branch to attach a pulley too turned out to be also structurally compromised...nuts. Cheaper to fell the oak ON the shed than to dismantle the tree to save what little of the shed remained...BUT. The owner wanted to keep the shabby ruin whose hole in the roof where so large we lowered gurt branches through them! I priced it at a day...then the rain set in. We got home at 9:30pm Today, we are proper ******. So tired, I packed up early to recharge for Fridays oak reduction. Ty

Hmmm Butter flavouring... I spread it on toast because although it 'may' cause cancer it also lowers cholestrol whilst giving my piss the potency to control any weeds I choose to wee on. Ty:biggrin:

Well... It is all we have FOR NOW and I do work all day with it for single clients. Like a J.R.Terrier I will attack anything! Lines of coni hedges, a plantation of 100 spruce, lines of poplars and recently a row of chuffing great thuyia stumps and also 5 huge pine stumps that took all day and all charged out at 480euros per day. Oh yes, its hard work all right but also the route to affording and justifying greater machines. Normally, its a 'bolt on' for domestic work but when there is the work it answers the call. For the future, there is a Bandit we have have our eye on...2550 with all the bells and whistles... On Monday, I recieved this smart flyer from a business some 30km South of us. I guess its been sent out to local garden and arb companies. I'm going to call them today to ask. Let you know later what they charge. Ty

Here, that will buy you one man and his mattock! Ty:001_tt2:

I admit to being a terrible accountant but... here's my math on the subject. If a Ped grinder bought outright costing £7k could do 1500hrs and still be saleable for say £1500 then it costs you £5.5 per hour. Using 4.2 litres of fuel (27hp petrol) per hour £5.5 Teeth and pockets...say £5 per hour Oils, belts, filters and repairs allowance £3 All in all, I think more like £20 in running costs alone. Then there is wages, transport, insurances blah blah blah AND PROFIT of course... Ty